The same set of blessed songs. No DJ's creative liberties, no remixed versions and no 'ooh-we-can dance-to-this-one' monstrosities. These little pubs know their classic rock and they will play it. Commerce, innovation, keeping up with the times and tapping new market segments be damned.
And you could try and replicate the scene in your room. You could bring your buddies over, hook up some sweet speakers, order Chinese and talk about nuthing at all. Hell, you could even go beyond...no pub lets you burn newspapers in the premises, or play Monopoly, or dance around foolishly to a Chumbawamba song with a plastic chair balancing wobbily on your head. All this to rapidly refilled glasses of fruit punch, or rum and coke or whatever your poison is.
But..soon enough..thou shall miss the beer.
I still remember the first sip I'd taken ever..a pint of Fosters, shared between the 3 aforementioned idiots. And I'd screwed up my face, gagged convulsively and wondered how people could even drink the stuff for free, much less the fact that it was thrice as expensive as Coke.
But then, one learnt. That you could delay the aftertaste a bit if you drank really fast. Chug, apparently. And that you the aftertaste was smoother if you drank it really cold. And then, one learnt that if you've done a critical volume of beer already, it's the aftertaste that you are now drinking for.
And one learnt about the Cannon 10000, and how one bottle's contents could still knock you out. And the classic Kingfisher. One learnt about Kings in Goa and about Jaguar's in Bangalore and about the beer at Pecos. One learnt about pitcher cards and popcorn and happy hours and beer goggles and how much is too much to chug.
About how blessed it feels, when you duck into a little shack on a scalding afternoon and crack open the first can, and have that first sip. About finding a spot that does not make you walk in with shiny shirts and gelled hair and dancing shoes, but just lets you be. Here's your music and here's your beer, boyo. Grin all you like.
And the buzz...hmmm.
Do you remember your school physics lessons, where you could strike a tiny tuning fork on a hard surface, and then you'd have to place it against a really tight strung wire? There'd be a folded piece of paper atop the wire, and it would vibrate in all enthusiasm if you brought the appropriate fork to the wire. Each wire had it's own fork....matching frequencies or some such shit.
I'm the strung wire. We all are, each with his own reasons. And that folded piece of paper has learnt to be inert for most of the time.
But bring on the 4th pitcher, and the paper begins to buzz. Throw in a forkful of beef chilly fry, and he'd be tapping his feet and hugging people.
Now kick in the opening bars of Stairway to Heaven, and he'd probably origami himself to orgasm.
1 comment:
'origami himself to orgasm' - waah!! you really have a way with the words.
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